Who’s Holding Back Who’s Hand?

I’m in RCIA right now, and I have a question that’s been bothering me for a while. I’m hoping you can shed some light. Someone on one of the combox threads posted the following:

“Our lady is holding back the hand of her beloved son from seeking retribution on those who wear the clerical cloth and those that are worshiping as humanists and not God himself.”

Now, the fellow in question may or may not be right, but I’m sure I’ve heard the first part of the quote before.

Here’s my question: I thought (as a Protestant) that it was Jesus who was staying the hand of God (out of love for His Son, God was withholding immediate judgment on the world). The quote makes it sound like it’s Mary who’s staying the hand of Jesus. I know the Church teaches that Mary intercedes for us with Christ, but this is starting to sound like a daisy chain. Help?

It’s understandable that this type of image would be a bit perplexing, especially if one is coming from a Protestant background, since many Protestants stress the idea of Jesus turning away God’s wrath from us.

Basically, the "holding back the hand" metaphor is just that: a metaphor. As such, it contains elements of truth, but it is also figurative. Mary is not literally holding back Jesus’ bodily hand to keep him from physically whacking erring clergymen. Neither is Jesus literally holding back God the Father’s hand to keep him from physically squashing us with it. That’s a metaphor.

The question is: What does the metaphor mean and what are its limits?

It would seem that the metaphor can refer to the fact that it is through Christ’s death (and his ongoing intercession at the "right hand" [another metaphor] of the Father) that we are treated more mercifully than we otherwise would be. In this sense we can say that Jesus restrains the "wrath" (bad consequences) that would otherwise come to us, for God has chosen to make his mercy toward us conditional on the work of his Son. Thus Jesus could be depicted as staying the Father’s wrath or holding back his hand.

But the metaphor also has limits. First, God doesn’t literally get angry. Anger is a passion, and God doesn’t have passions. When Scripture speaks of God’s anger, it’s using a metaphor to communicate the idea that he will allow bad consequences to occur to those on earth on account of their wrongdoing. He’s not literally seething with rage.

Quite the contrary! It is he who sent his Son to die for us on the Cross and thus provide salvation in spite of our sins! God sent his Son because he loves us and wants us to be saved. Thus he’s really on our side. It’s true that he will allow bad things to happen if we refuse his offer of grace (i.e., he will allow us to choose to reject him if we insist on it; he won’t force himself on us), but he wants to provide us with grace, and he sent his Son to make that possible.

Thus if we wish to view what is literally true, we must look past the metaphor of anger and of Jesus restraining his Father from squashing us in a fit of rage. That image is not literally true.

The content of the metaphor seems to consist in two points: (1) We deserve bad consequences for our sins but (2) we don’t receive these bad consequences because of Jesus’ work on our behalf.

Going beyond the metaphor, we also recognize (3) the Father loves us and (4) it is he himself who sent his Son so that we might receive mercy.

The same exact thing applies if we speak of Mary (or anyone else) restraining divine wrath. That’s a metaphor as well, and it communicates basically the same content, with the necessary changes folded in.

God wants to give us benefits, but he has willed that these benefits sometimes be contingent on the prayer of others. Thus he encourages the Christian community to be built up in love and concern for each other by giving it additional benefits when we are drawn out of ourselves to be concerned for and to pray for other people. It’s his reward system for turning our thoughts to him and to others, instead of focusing exclusively on our selves.

Based on this fact, it would be possible to modify the metaphor of restraining divine anger such that the intercession of Mary (or anyone else who prays) is pictured as what averts the bad consequences that would otherwise come. As the Mother of Christ, Mary is a particularly powerful intercessor, and so this metaphor is sometimes applied to her, but it could also be applied any time anyone’s prayers help us out.

Yet the content of the metaphor is basically the same: (1) We deserve bad consequences on account of our wrongdoings but (2) we don’t receive these bad consequences (at least in some cases) because of the intercession of another (Mary, in the case we are considering).

Looking beyond the metaphor, we also realize (3) that God (Father and Son and Holy Spirit) loves us and (4) it was God himself (Father and Son and Holy Spirit) who allows us to be blessed through the intercession of others, based on the work of Christ.

Mr Akin,St.Padre pio ,used to pray to the Blesssed Mother for Her to stay Her Sons hand when it came to matters of wrath.
St Pio related to his fellow priests that Jesus actually changed His mind from one outcome to another.Thus the power of intercessory prayer.
God bless you.

I thank you for this wonderful post, as I had used this metaphor on another JA thread where I was accused of Insulting the Bride of Christ. (God bless and see below)
It just shows how those who really dont know the church and what she once stood for, how they can make the leap of faith that I, in saying that we must all be very careful and Our Lady, in remembrance of her appearance in 1848 whose anniversary we recently celebrated and then at Fatima where the world was at War, where she warned the world of the pending doom her son would bestow and the world has chosen to ignore her and unfortunatly our beloved church as well as she has temporarily decided to side with the Modern world instead of sound true traditional teachings.
John,
Good morning!
Still won’t answer my question? And I hope that you can forgive me if I accept the understanding that Sacred Scripture give us about the Church and ignore your faithless ranting and Banter.
“as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
I would caution you about insulting the Bride of Christ.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

In the same vein as Dr. Eric’s post above, we need to encourage people with regard to apparitions such as Madjegoria to be circumspect as they are not approved.When folks start putting too much emphasis on an apparition, we should caution that because even apparitions that are approved (Lourdes, Fatima) do not require divine faith. In fact, we cannot put divine faith in an apparition. Why? Because it is a private revelation – it does not merit divine faith. And so even those that are approved, we have to remember to keep them circumspect. How much more so those that have not been approved at all?

John,
Please be honest. Here is the comment I responded to:“Our lady is holding back the hand of her beloved son from seeking retribution on those who wear the clerical cloth and those that are worshiping as humanists and not God himself. History has shown in the OT what has happened to those who deny God, andthe church is already in shambles because of her denial.” Posted by: John | Feb 12, 2007 6:14:29 AM
You are being very dishonest and should admit it.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

Innocencio:
About your comment to John:You are being very dishonest and should admit it.
As if he was even honest before.
Do you not recall all those despicable lies he attempted to spread about the Church, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, John XXIII in past threads?

Great post. It is rather peripheral, but could someone please comment on the following difficulty I’m having?
Jimmy says:
“First, God doesn’t literally get angry. Anger is a passion, and God doesn’t have passions.”
And then later:
“God sent his Son because he loves us and wants us to be saved.”
But the catechism states rather plainly:
1765 There are many passions. The most fundamental passion is love, aroused by the attraction of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining it; this movement finds completion in the pleasure and joy of the good possessed. The apprehension of evil causes hatred, aversion, and fear of the impending evil; this movement ends in sadness at some present evil, or in the anger that resists it.
Thus, the inference is:
1. God doesn’t have passions.
2. Love is a passion.
————————–
=> God doesn’t have love.
So, please tell me which premise is wrong, or which term is ambiguous. The reasoning is sound.

Dear KWS,
Both of your premises are incomplete, so you arrive at an inaccurate conclusion.
You should have written this:
1. God doesn’t have HUMAN passions.
2. Love is a HUMAN passion.
————————–
=> God doesn’t have HUMAN love.
God has divine love, which is not passionate.
Dear JA,
Please (red-facedly) fix the title of this thread.
It should not be, “Who’s Holding Back Who’s Hand?”.
It should be, “Who’s Holing Back WHOSE Hand?”

Thanks, Jimmy for another clear-headed exposition. It’s easy, sometimes, to forget that His ways are not our ways.
John, do you ever get tired of your one-note symphony? We do.
The gates of Hell cannot prevail against the Church, but according to you, Hell has already successfully tempted the Bride of Christ to defect and align herself with the World, the Flesh and the Devil.
You seem to have given up on the guidance Christ promised to His Church, and have turned to despair, all because YOU think YOU know what the Church ought to look like and to teach.
Sorry, I’ll stick with the Pope.

Esau,“As if he was even honest before.”
I agree with you. I am trying to be charitable and avoid being accused of “intemperate provocations” as I was in another thread.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

Innocencio:I am trying to be charitable and avoid being accused of “intemperate provocations” as I was in another thread.
Stick by your convictions, my friend, and you’ll find that in such matters you are seldom wrong so long as you go with God and His Teachings!
(Now, I only say that as regards matters of Faith; lotto tickets and other personal items, I cannot say.)
For what it’s worth (in my opinion at least), I can’t find any of your posts that would’ve been in the slightest intemperately provocative.

I’m a little confused about Jimmy’s comment that God doesn’t have passions – or human passions, as someone else mentioned. If Jesus is God, and he certainly is, but also human at the same time, then he did experience emotions of anger, sadness, joy, etc. Therefore, I disagree with Jimmy’s comment.
There are also numerous writings by saints and mystics who have had apparitions, in which Jesus is speaking to them about his sorrow about various situations, or his pleasure with what they have done. If you say then, that Jesus has emotions/passions/whatever, then you are completely separating God from Jesus when you say that God doesn’t. I don’t believe this is a metaphor, because then that would imply that Jesus didn’t have any real passions on earth, which wouldn’t make him fully human.
Maybe Jimmy can explain further.

J:
In his eighth book of the Institutes, on “the spirit of anger,” St. John calls anger a “deadly poison” which “blinds with its hurtful
darkness the eye of the soul” and is “to be utterly rooted out from the inmost corners of our soul” (Book 8, chapter I). Unless
freed from the passion of anger, he writes, “we cannot acquire right judgement and discretion, and we cannot gain insight nor
can we be partakers of life, or retentive of righteousness, or have the capacity for spiritual and true light, we cannot attain
immortal life, nor can we be accounted righteous, nor can we acquire esteem and honor, or wisdom.”
I believe this is the Passion of Anger that Jimmy Akin speaks of that God does not have.
Of course, I’m only speaking from my perspective and I’m sure he can certainly provide a more satisfactory explanation on his own behalf.

Our Lord had His human passions entirely dominated.
He was lord over Himself, as He not only was perfect because of His Hypostatic Union, as He is the second person of the H.T., ergo God, but also His human nature was perfect as it was not corrupted by sin.
Therefore His passions were entirely intregal.
Is that a word in english?
Like bonum causa integra est?
Anger is not always sinful or imperfect.
Dies ira dies illa!
Well it translate more into wrath, but I imagine they are somewhat similar in this context.
God was angered with Sodom, the jews selling things in the temple and it seems like He is getting there with our generations.
And as I always say, Our Lady gave us a warning.
We did not and do not heed it.
Ergo, maledictio super nos est.
Amen veni ira tua!

Surely you mean, “Who’s Holding Back WHOSE Hand?”You guys don’t see me complaining about “Gattica! Gattica!” even though “I” is not a nucleic acid base unlike G=C A=T, which the movie’s title “GATTACA” was based on.
(Apologies for the double bond between G & C; don’t know how to do a triple bond here)

Great questions, J.
All I can contribute is that it seems to me that Jesus, as fully man, lifts the human passions to the Godhead, sanctifying and purifying them.
So, even those human emotions that God may be said to possess by analogy are not like the ordinary human passions as we know them.
When we offer our passions to Christ, He cleanses them of self-interest. So we are enabled by His grace to love as He loves (agape), rather than loving in the kind of incomplete, selfish way most common to mankind.
Also, though there are no “parts” to God, there are persons within the Godhead, and these persons each have a particular role. It is the role of God the Son to take on human nature and bring it to perfection. In a sense, this does mean that the whole Godhead “partakes” of human nature, but God the Son in a unique way.
Also, God is outside time. The seemingly human attributes that God displays in His interactions with mankind throughout all of history can be said to reflect the reality of the Incarnation, even in those times BEFORE the Incarnation.

Ok, now I’m curious. Where is it that we discover that God has no passions. Is it just part of His divine nature or is it somehow related to his state of sinlessness? Since we are made in His image, and since passion is such a large part of what it is to be human, how is God devoid of these passions?
This is all very interesting and, as always, I’m greatly impressed by the pool of knowledge displayed on the blog.

You are looking at these passions like we have them.
Corrupt and lord over us instead of us over them.
Adam and Eve were created integral. They exercised a complete dominion over themselves.
Yet God had to leave the trial. And they failed, and lost the gift on intergerty.
Now we are born like little animals, without use of reason and weak and filled with disordered passions. We know got to fight them.
Before sin, we wouldn’t have too.

“Adam and Eve were created integral. They exercised a complete dominion over themselves.”
With this integrity and complete dominion, how is it that they were tempted to disobey God by eating the fruit?
Perhaps you are saying that they were not without temptation, but chose to sin even without disordered passion pushing them to do so. I’m not challenging you, It’s just something that I’ve often thought about and hope to come to a better understanding.

Love is not essentially a passion, though human beings experience it that way. Love is self-donation. In the Blessed Trinity, love is eternal and perfect act, with nothing passive (and thus passion-related) about it.

Boethius (a Catholic Philosopher) is one of the people who said that God does not have emotions. His argument is this:
“But how are you both merciful and impassible(unable to be moved from outside)? For if you are impassible, you do not feel compassion, and if you do not feel compassion, your heart is not sorrowful out of compassion for sorrow; and that is what being merciful is. But if you are not merciful, how is it that you are such a comfort to the sorrowful?
So How, Lord, are you both merciful and not merciful? Is it not because you are merciful in relation to us but not in relation to yourself? You are indeed merciful according to what we feel, but not according to what you feel. For when you look with favor upon us in our sorrow, we feel the effect [effectum] of mercy, but you do not feel the emotion [affectum] of mercy. So you are merciful, because you save the sorrowful and spare those who sin against you; but you are also not merciful, because you are not afflicted with any feeling of compassion for sorrow”(Boethius, Proslogion Chapter 8,translated by Thomas Williams)
So basically, if something were able to move God, he would not be all powerful. Since emotions are an effect on the one having the emotion, they cause things foreign/outside of the person to move them. But since God is immovable, he cannot have feelings in the same way that humans do.
I just learned that this week!

As to passions in Jesus, he did have them with respect to his human nature; indeed, they are intrinsic to human nature. Jesus, in his human existence, mantains perpetually a perfect order in his passions. Being angry, sorrowful or whatever are not in themselves sinful; it is when the passions become inordinate and not restrained by reason that a passion becomes sinful. With respect to his divine nature, he is not subject to passions, as the Divinity is impassible. Because in the one Person of Jesus Christ are hypostatically united the divine nature and his human nature, we can predicate whatever is proper to either nature to his person by way of the communication of idioms.
Likewise, the Blessed Virgin, by virtue of her grace-filled existence, maintains perpetual order in her passions. She obviously had passions, such as joy at the Annunciation and sorrow during the Passion and love throughout her life, but her passions were subject to reason. This control that she maintained over her appetites is what made her perpetually sinless.
Adam and Eve were created with this same control over their appetites, but, unlike Mary, they chose to rebel when tempted by the serpent.

Well, now, my children, you will pass this along to all my people.”
These words are from Our Lady, the Mother of God as she concluded her famous message as she came to earth on September 19, 1846 to deliver to two poor peasant children on the mountain of La Salette.
Our Lady spoke to Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud because outside the Gospel hardly any communication from heaven is sent to warn us. When Our Lady talks , such determined opposition (such as Esau, Tim J, Inocencio who call those who preach against liberalization and lax church rules as being Darth Vader and Rad Trad where it is just plan Catholic). I can only wonder what they would be saying to the early Apostles and Our Lady herself if they were chosen as those little children?
This is so unfortunate despite the fact that the apparition at La Salette like Fatima where she also warned us, has enjoyed almost immediately the full approval of the Church, with rich indulgences granted to pilgrims there, and that canonically approved miracles have taken place on the spot.
Melanie later wrote to her director Abbé Combe in 1903, “the bishops, those who considered themselves referred to in the Secret, are the enemies of this merciful Secret, just as the high priests condemned the divine Savior to death!”
Pius IX ordered the Bishop of Grenoble to build a Church on the mountain of La Salette. Leo XIII crowned the statue and gave the sanctuary the title of Basilica.
But those here like Inocencio continue to make fun of me and those others here with such words as “Darth Vader”. You are no better than those Bishops are lady was talking about. I pray that you do wake up and speak as well from the mountaintops and preach, as the Evangelicals do, of sin (love for Cardinal Law-In straight defiance of Our Lady???) and how the church must condone and not accept it.

John, why single out just a few people? While there is an exception to everything, nearly everyone who reads your posts has the same reaction. That is:
1. Rejection of Church authority.
2. A holier-than-thou attitude.
3. You make a lot of accusations without backing them up.
Those of us who have attempted a discussion with you over a longer time, have also noted:
4. Not answering questions asked of you.
John, doesn’t the fact that your comments strike nearly everyone, newbie and longtimer, the same way say anything to you?

John,
You are very untruthful and it is sad. I gave documentation of you being untruthful and you ignored it. If you make yourself a joke please do not blame me if people make fun of you.
You do not read or respond to other people’s comments, you just keep posting comments on what you “think people said and what you “know” is the the “truth” and you “know” it is “true” because you think so.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

PioMagnus:Boethius (a Catholic Philosopher) is one of the people who said that God does not have emotions.
What are you taking????
Boethius was also the one who provided Christianity with the definition of “Person” in terms of Christology.
Specifically, with regard to Christ, Christ in his person – if you walked up to Jesus Christ 2000 years ago and talked to Him – He is one person and that person is divine. He is the second person of the blessed Trinity; the Word Made Flesh; Almighty God. But, this person incarnate uniquely – different from any human being because a human being has one nature, and that is a human nature. That doesn’t mean he is a human nature but he has a human nature.
Well, Christ, when we talk about his person, is divine but he has two natures through the miracle of the Incarnation and there’s not another example of any person that has two natures. This is a Miracle. But, he has two natures: divine and human.
Now, the nature that any other human being has is what makes him distinctly human. Because, if I just say he was a person, he could be an angel. An angel is a person because they’re rational. It’s the nature of a human being that makes him a human person.
With Christ, we have something a little bit tricky here because once we get to Christ, a lot of our Boethian definition and such kind don’t always hold up all that well because with Christ, it is His nature, the divine nature, that makes him a divine person.
But, in the Incarnation we have added this human nature. So, what do we do with this?Well, the human nature of Christ, we say in Theology, is accidental to his person.
It’s not essential for Christ to be human in order to be a person.
He’s a divine person for all eternity.So, the human nature of Christ, while hypostatically joined in the person, (we say ‘hypostatically’, that simply means ‘in the person’ or the Greek word ‘hypostasis’).
It’s still accidental to His person so that we don’t say that He is, all of a sudden, a human person; no, he’s a divine person but he also has a human nature which puts him in a unique category.
Now, when we talk about the wills, then, in Christ; because he has two natures, he would then have two wills because the intellect and will reside in the nature.So, the divine nature has an intellect and will that is divine. The human nature has an intellect and will that is human. Therefore, Christ (now, a regular human being doesn’t have this – he doesn’t have 2 intellects; he has one intellect and one will) is unique in that He has two natures in his person, he has two intellects and two wills.

Dan
I shall pray as well for you, please do not despair as the 6th commandment, the sins of the flesh which is so prevalent today in society and is now becoming the norm instead of the exception, even in our beloved church (where we actually have “Catholics” on this blog who think Cardinal Law’s coverup and Vatican safehaven is all fine and dandy). Our Lady warned us and said there are more souls in Hell for sins of the flesh than any other sin. Pray to her for strength.
God bless you

JOHN (jtnova):
You are a true servant of your father, John, Satan, the Father of ALL LIES.
John 8:44
44 You are of your father the devil: and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning: and he stood not in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
Further, just who amongst the good folks here on this blog are as you maliciously characterized:where we actually have “Catholics” on this blog who think Cardinal Law’s coverup and Vatican safehaven is all fine and dandy).
As far as the Commandments go, I believe there is also one that regards bearing FALSE WITNESS, which you have done against Christ’s own Church, holy people like Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, John XIII and Benedict XVI.
Too bad that you won’t realize the evil you have done until you finally expire into the great fire prepared for especially for people like you!

John,
Thank you very much for the words of spiritual wisdom.
Life is so very difficult if we look at it through our myopic vision.But when we meditate upon what our Savior endured we see that our burden,s are light and our yokes are sweet in comparison.
May this Lent find you and yours at that threshold of glory that the shedding of personal sin manifests in Christs Paschal mystery.
God bless.

Life is so very difficult if we look at it through our myopic vision.But when we meditate upon what our Savior endured we see that our burden,s are light and our yokes are sweet in comparison.Yes, Dan, I’m sure our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, would delight in so-called followers spreading lies about holy people (like Mother Teresa and John Paul II) and the Church He founded and, even further, usurping the authority that Christ meant only for His Church and its leader, the Pope, through St. Peter. Talk about myopic vision. Now, why don’t you two get a room somewhere! Think that is un-Christian? Well, so are the lies that John had said in past threads! Of course, to you, he is a Holy Man of God — and how nicely he demonstrates this by the very lies he promulgates against Christ’s own Church and His loved ones especially John Paul II and Mother Teresa!

Esau, once again displaying his lack of intellect and judging me to Hell for my dislike for Cardinal Law, and his undying support of child molesters and those that protect them, has stated the following, as he for some reason, in my dislike of Cardinal Law that I am bearing false witness:
“As far as the Commandments go, I believe there is also one that regards bearing FALSE WITNESS, which you have done against Christ’s own Church, holy people like Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, John XIII and Benedict XVI. Too bad that you won’t realize the evil you have done until you finally expire into the great fire prepared for especially for people like you”
What Esau fails to realize that it is our Lord himself, summarize by John Paul II in his 1994 Encyclical, where he warns all not to harm those little children, and it is better a millstone be tied around ones neck
Esau-Please read and calm yourself, you will eventually grow in spirit and realize you have much to learnhttp://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_13121994_children_en.html
“He will say to the Apostles: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them”, and he will add: “for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Mk 10:14). Another time, as the Apostles are arguing about who is the greatest, he will put a child in front of them and say: “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3). On that occasion, he also spoke harsh words of warning: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mt 18:6).”

Esau, once again displaying his lack of intellect and judging me to Hell for my dislike for Cardinal Law, and his undying support of child molesters and those that protect them, has stated the following, as he for some reason, in my dislike of Cardinal Law that I am bearing false witness:
Again, you demonstrate your stupidity and wicked ability to deceive folks here and twist the truth, as you are so adept at doing since you prove quite truly that you are the son of him who is the Father of Lies!
How many times have I posted against such wicked priests on this blog? How many times have I uttered my disgust over them? Also, the very fact that the majority of them are old priests from your so-called Holy Tridentine days should admit the fact that the defect in them are not a result of Vatican II (as your lies had wretchedly claimed) since they, in fact, had come from a time even before Vatican II, but that the defect lay within themselves! And for you to have actually said that they did not admit such pedophiles and homosexual miscreants in your days as they do today (when, in fact, seminaries these days have rightly become more particular in who they admit) is yet another lie manufactured by your vile deceit and awful wickedness which seeks to do harm against Christ’s Holy Church!
In fact, you don’t even know me and the work I’ve done against such horrible evils!Esau-Please read and calm yourself, you will eventually grow in spirit and realize you have much to learn
On that occasion, he also spoke harsh words of warning: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mt 18:6).”
Your post here once again further demonstrates the FACT that you do not read our posts to you.
How many times have I quoted this passage? How many times I’ve spoken regarding this?
Yet, you are so blinded by your own evil, that you actually believe the work you do is just and holy when, in fact, what you do is the work of the Devil by spreading lies about good and holy people (like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II as well as faithful servants like John XXIII and Benedict XVI) as well as the Church (by calling it an organization of Freemasons and such)!
You will, indeed, reap your just rewards in the end; mark my words!

Tim
I am trying-Esau hates me and badgers any comment I make, I think he looks for a post of mine just to respond with a 2000 word essay
God bless you Esau and I do love you
We are really not that far apart in thought and belief
John

Going off at a tangent somewhat, this notion of Mary interceding with her Son who in turn intercedes with His Father to show mercy and avert wrath is illustrated in mediaeval and early Renaissance paintings:
“www.darkfiber.com/pz/chapter6.html
The iconography of Mary exposing her breast (ostentation mammarum) as intercessor or mediatrix dates back to the 10th century in which Mary shows the part of her humanity, i.e., her breast, that connects her as mother to Jesus; Jesus, in turn, exposes the part of his humanity that connects him to his father–his wounds (ostentatio vulnerum), which his father asked him to suffer.
“Crucifixion with God the Father, the Virgin, a Patron-Saint, and Catherine of Cleves”: Catherine pleads with the Holy Mother of God to pray for her; the Virgin intercedes with her Son to be gracious to Catherine for His mother’s sake, whose breasts nursed him; Christ crucified asks, in the name of His wounds, for His Father to spare Catherine, and the Father tells His Son, “Your prayer has been heard with favor.”
1508 painting by Hans Holbein the Elder; God the Father and Jesus (Man of Sorrows), and Mary, with sinners; Above the Man of Sorrows are the lines: ‘Father, see my red wounds, help men in their need, through my bitter death;’ and above Mary: ‘Lord, sheath thy sword that thou hast drawn, and see my breast, where the Son has sucked;’ and above God the Father, who returns his sword to its scabbard: ‘I will show pity to all those who depart from life in true repentance.’
16th century “María, intercesora ante el Padre” by the Castilian School; God the Father to the left raises his hand in benediction, Jesus raises his right to show the wound in his hand and with his left hand shows the wound in his right side as angels hold the other implements of his torture and death, and Mary, kneeling behind Jesus to the painting’s right, holding her right breast with her left hand, her right hand open, gesturing towards Jesus and the Father.
“Intecession de la Vierge et de Saint François arrêtant les Foudres divines” by Peter-Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Flemish; Jesus raises his right arm, clasping thunderbolts of wrath as Mary, to the right, touches his left arm while baring her left breast with her right; Saint Francis, meanwhile, attempts to shield the globe of the Earth from Jesus’ wrath with his body.
“María, intercesora ante el Hijo” by Mateo Cerezo (1666); Jesus enthroned in the clouds, Mary kneeling before him in a lower cloud to the left with her hand to her breast, as Saint Augustine holds a rosary up to him and Saint Francis of Assisi holds up a loaf of bread–all in order to request mercy from Jesus who judges a semi-nude human male kneeling below him.”
The idea is not, as you have said, that Mary literally holds back the hand of a viciously wrathful God or that there is a daisy chain of sinful living humans – saints – Mary – Jesus – God the Father; the idea is “But you are a God of pardons, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in mercy; you did not forsake them.”
Of course this can be made a superstition; like all other devotions, it can be abused. But the root is completely in accordance with Biblical precedents.

Argh. I meant in that last “As Jimmy has said, the idea is *not* that Mary literally” etc., not as it came out, “Jimmy said Mary is holding back the hand”.
I now return to looking at the pretty pictures (and praying for intercession of the Communion of Saints):-)

Fuinseoig:
Regarding your comment:…her breast, that connects her as mother to Jesus…
It’s interesting to note the Psalm Jesus had actually referenced at the Cross:
Psalm 22
1 ¶ (21-1) < > (21-2) My God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins.
2 (21-3) O my God, I shall cry by day, and thou wilt not hear: and by night, and it shall not be reputed as folly in me.
3 (21-4) But thou dwellest in the holy place, the praise of Israel.
4 (21-5) In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them.
5 (21-6) They cried to thee, and they were saved: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
6 (21-7) But I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.
7 (21-8) All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head.
8 (21-9) He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, seeing he delighteth in him.
9 (21-10) For thou art he that hast drawn me out of the womb: my hope from the breasts of my mother.
10 (21-11) I was cast upon thee from the womb. From my mother’s womb thou art my God,
11 ¶ (21-12) Depart not from me. For tribulation is very near: for there is none to help me.

Esau,
God bless you.I second that expression of love.
You are trying to be a good person.Just don’t blow a gasket over your hatred for some people.
And most of all do not condemn John to hell,you are not The Almighty.Neither is John.Neither is anyone except the Holy Trinity.
Please do not insinuate that I dislike Blessed Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul or Our present Holy Father.Two of them are saints and the third will be.
I am just letting John know he is loved and is prayed for,like you are loved and prayed for.
Why don’t you just love and pray for John.
Please say it Esau,I love and pray for John.After all God loves him just as much as you
God bless you.

Just don’t blow a gasket over your hatred for some people.
You’ve wrongfully mischaracterized me for it is not hatred; it is righteous indignation for all the offenses John had committed against Our Lord through his calumnious lies regarding the Church and its saintly people.Please do not insinuate that I dislike Blessed Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul or Our present Holy Father.Two of them are saints and the third will be.
I wasn’t insinuating anything; it was in reference to John’s past actions in several threads where he intentionally and maliciously attacked the very person of these folks without any corroborating evidence to substantiate his accusations.Why don’t you just love and pray for John.
Please say it Esau,I love and pray for John.After all God loves him just as much as you
God bless you.
That’s where you’re dead wrong; just because I despise John’s actions doesn’t mean I hate him.
In fact, even John knows that we agree with respect to certain matters — such as the desire to have the Tridentine Mass return en masse.
Like him, I cannot tolerate the manner in which certain Masses are celebrated these days and the prevelant disrespect certain rogue clergy have toward Our Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
However, I would not go so far as to take upon myself the Authority that rightfully belongs to Our Holy Father, the Pope, and which remains in saecula saeculorum to the Church Christ founded: that is, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Furthermore, calumny, among his many other ignoble actions, is just downright despicable and, quite frankly, intolerable and does not serve Our Lord!

Dan: I’m not trying to sound like a jerk here but … you were the guy who, several weeks back, wanted to have boxing matches with anyone who disagreed with you. You took great delight (“teehee”ing all the way) in bickering.
In light of your latest “love” post, it just seems a bit ironic, is all.

Dan
Be careful-just like the Pharisies tried their hardest to entrap Our Lord who was always smarter than they, until they had to resort to drumming up false acusations such as blasphemy (sort of like Esau and others with the “Rad Trad” and “Schismatic labels”)-Keep your responses coherent and love for the church and her Tradition in its unblemmished form aparent
God Bless

John,
Have no fear my friend,my response’s will stay coherant.I will never abandon Sacred Tradition or tradition.
Lets just do a lot more prayer work and less word work.God bless you.
Viva Cristo Rey.
P.S.What does RadTrad mean?

…until they had to resort to drumming up false acusations such as blasphemy (sort of like Esau and others with the “Rad Trad” and “Schismatic labels”)-
YOU ACCUSE ME OF FALSE ACCUSATIONS AND BLASPHEMY????
WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THESE COMMENTS OF YOURS, OH PATRON SAINT OF DAN HUNTER & RAD TRADS:

Our Lord made it clear that better a millstone be around their neck then harm a child, and we now have a priesthood upwards of 50, 60, 70% homosexual.
Posted by: John | Oct 4, 2006 9:56:52 AM
The following was instituted in 1961 by John XXIII-why was it not followed?? That is easy-because the church wanted a liberal priesthood-got what they wanted, then realized they had let all the candidates that believed in Protestanism, reform, and woman ordination (aka Homosexual Male) and did not realize they let the genie out of the bottle and now have a huge problem, if you get rid of the gay priests-you basically have no priests left!!
Posted by: John | Oct 4, 2006 5:03:22 PM
IT is because of the desire for a liberal priesthood and a turn away from tradition not to mention the change in form and matter of many of the sacraments including the rite of ordination for priests as of 1968 that we have these issues that you describe. The church for centuries were attacked from without but her unwavering faith, morals, tradition, art, music and clergy kept these modernists at bay who were lambasting her for not being “with it”. Well they got their wish in 1958 with John XXIII who decided to “open the windows” and “modernize”. Well the windows flew open and in flew all kinds of germs and disease and the church was slowly dismantled, with perverts and child molesters actually ordained as priests and clergy who harmed our innocent children
Posted by: John | Oct 15, 2006 8:06:20 AM
What I do have an issue is what to do when what is described by Father Lawrence takes place-does one stay and worship in a mass one feels in their heart is incorrect (not invalid-just plain old wrong), not to mention the catechesis which watered down by JPII has my friends and family who are in marriages that are a bit bumpy already thinking about grounds for annulments which after meeting with their “priest” have told them they most likely will get. One of my co-workers in New Jersey was told (he was previously married for 18 years with 2 children) that a good “donation” to the parish may help his cause. He eventually decided against the $10k dontation because he felt that having 3 relatives sign documents that his marriage was invalid before would cause major harm to his children from that marriage-it took his reason to decide against something the church and canon law of JPII “the great??” with its 60k annulments a year in the US alone would have allowed.
Posted by: John | Oct 15, 2006 1:33:35 PM
Let us start with indisputable facts. Whether we believe it or not, and whether it seems possible to us or not, what is abundantly clear is, that after V2 the Catholic religion has been changed. In the practical order, it has been replaced by another religion, an evolving religion, a religion greatly influenced by Freemasonry and Marxism and inspired throughout by what Popes Pius IX and X clearly rejected under the designation of “Modernism.” Having created a “robber” Council that raised a host of errors such as the denial of the Church’s “Unity” and Religious Liberty to the level of an infallible teaching, the post-Conciliar “Church” proceeded to abolish the Oath against Modernism and the Holy Office. What other purpose could such measures have than to deprive the Traditional Church – the Church of All Times – of all her defenses? And what followed? The turning of altars into tables, the changing of priests into “presiders,” the invalidating of all the sacraments not acceptable to Protestants, the mistranslating of the Scriptures, and above all, the downgrading of Tabernacles and the destruction of the Mass – “humanist” changes of the most serious nature. Cardinal Suenens was correct when he described this as “the French Revolution in the Catholic Church.”
Some would accuse traditional Catholics – those that insist on retaining the fullness of the Catholic faith intact and who therefore refuse the new religion of the post-Conciliar Church, of being in “schism.” The accusation is a lie. In reality, the schismatic is one who removes himself from the truth, and not one who insists upon it. And if it is necessary to separate oneself from something in order to save the truth. But in reality, it is not the traditional Catholic who is in Schism, but those who are responsible for changing the Catholic faith. But let is be both clear and honest. In similar manner traditional Catholics are accused of being Protestants because they disobey the pope. Such accusations are false. Traditional Catholics do not “pick and choose” what they wish to believe; they are adhering with all their hearts to what the Church has always taught and always done. Nor are they disobeying the pope. They believe that the pope, being Christ’s vicar on earth and “one hierarchical person” with our Lord, is to be obeyed. They know that when Peter speaks he is infallible because it is Christ who speaks through him. They are the out and out papists and are doing nothing less than refusing to disobey Peter. In such a situation they are obliged to disobey those who falsely speak in Peter’s name. To obey modernist and heretical “popes” is to declare that they are “one hierarchical person” with our Lord and hence that Christ teaches falsely – quod absit!
Posted by: John | Oct 16, 2006 3:27:41 AMIt is essentially a new church that itself has changed-It has more in common with Luther in picking and chosing what was “Catholic” than Lefebvre or any Traditionalist ever did
As far as the gates of hell-It is clear Our Lord that the faithful would be few and there would be many false prophets and that heresy would reign supreme-but those that strictly adhere to the faith would be the ones saved. A false pope would emerge leading many into sin and the fires of hell
The safe road is always to follow the tried and true teachings of the church-if St Anathasius had followed the Pope and Bishops of the 4th century we would not be a church today
Archibishop Lefebvre will be found to be along with Cardinal Ottavani in the same light as the great Saint who saved the church from heresy. This of course will never take place in our lifetime as the world and the church itself are to compromised at this point “A Pope proclaiming hold Moslems in high esteem???”. We can only pray for the church
Posted by: John | Oct 16, 2006 12:22:57 PM
What would you as the so called “Vatican II” Catholics do? Would you follow this order (Note that the liturgy is NOT infallible). You know that it is wrong to worship as a Moslem and though there is a bit of Catholicism here and there-it seems Ok-but should you do it????
This is the dilemna those that are Traditional and those that were brought up in the church after Vatican II, started to read a bit, learn, investigate, see all kinds of crazy things taking place at Mass and worse yet the catechism-and you KNEW something was wrong. We are being told to be Protestants with a bit of Catholicism mixed in but many are holding fast to Tradition as St Paul told us to. We do not think we know more than the pope, but we do know something is very wrong and will stay away until it is fixed
Posted by: John | Oct 17, 2006 5:47:53 PM
As far as my hypothetical question you compare this analogy to the Pope worshiping satan-Now that is a stretch-Just as millions felt when the Protestants and Bugnini (a KNOWN mason) formulated a new Mass and a POPE in Paul VI took away the staple of the church in her form of worship of God and replaced it with a mass that was formulated by a Mason, Protestants, and liberal theologians (can the ICEL ever get even a translation correct???).
The question I posed is exactly that-we introduced Protesantism into our Mass in the name of ECUMANIA-why not start to worship Mecca? We already allow Hindu and Moslem worship to take place in our church’s in Europe as a sign of good will to these faiths, putting pagan idols right next to the blessed sacrament. You need to do a little bit of reading and learn what is happening to our beloved church
Posted by: John | Oct 18, 2006 4:29:03 AMA Catholic, therefore, would owe no obedience to someone who does not truly possess the Church’s authority or teaches error. Condemnations from the V-2 hierarchy shouldn’t worry those that hold fast tothe faith anymore than one would worry about being condemned by local Anglican or Lutheran bishop
At the same time, I’m not the pope, and I don’t require that someone who feels as traditionalists do try and figure all of these things out, as we dont even discuss such things, but we know what is being sold as “Catholic” is not.
It’s just that, having heard many explanations for the post-Vatican II mess, this seems to be the only one which makes sense in terms of the Church’s problems of today that the Pope is not a good Pope and if one promotes error one not need to follow it
Posted by: John | Oct 18, 2006 1:43:25 PMYou once again miss what Vatican II has done-it has reinvented past church teachings and redefined them to suit the liberal modernist and even masonic influence of the church (ecumenism is a form of secularism which masons teach)
Posted by: John | Oct 18, 2006 5:54:31 PMWhat the Freemason Bugnini and the six Protestants wrote is the Novus Ordo that is still in force in the post conciliar Church. Paul VI made no change in it, except a small change in the introduction, when Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani pointed to the heretical nature of the new definition of the Mass. Indeed, many Cardinals, Archbishops, etc., both in the Vatican itself and elsewhere, are known to be so. (There is said to have been a bishop in Minnesota who wore his Masonic ring publicly.) A sensation was caused when a list of Masonic Italian Cardinals was published in the 1970’s.
Posted by: John | Oct 18, 2006 7:04:16 PM
UNIVERSAL INDULT dahhh humbug, the ancient liturgy has a pedigree going back to the time of the Apostles,This liturgy commonly referred to as the Tridentine or “latin Mass” was codified in the 16th century by the council of Trent and eternally protected by the Bull “Quo Primum”.So whats with this universal indult baloney. Pope Paul 6 said “the smoke of Satan has entered the church” after the disaster called vatican 2 and did he do anything about it,he sure did, he introducted a venacular service concocted by a freemason called Archbishop Bugnini and to salt the insult used at least six known protestant clerics to give the Catholic Church a heretical protestant mass called the mass of paul 6 aka novus ordo missae. This banal irreverant service diminished belief in the Real Presence making the Sacred Mass into a protestant meal. Thanks to the revisionism of Vatican 2 and it’s aftermath as millions left the church and prelates systematically FORBID the Ancient Latin Mass to please “our protestant brethren”.Even the Orthodox churches look at the so-called new mass with suspicion and see it as a protestant service, and this was one more wedge in the division of East and West.When the Tabernacle is front and center and the sanctuary lamp burning in every Roman Catholic Church,When the Ancient Liturgy is available in every Catholic church worldwide, when pedophilic/embezzeling.homosexual cardinals, bishops and priests, nuns and monks are excorcized from the Catholic church, when the oath against the heresy of modernity is taken again by every priest including the Pope, when the syllibus of errors is again respected, when the triple crown again rests on the head of the Supreme Pontiff, then just maybe the restoration of Christs Church will commence and the 40 post vatican 2 years in the wilderness will be but a memory.
Posted by: John | Oct 31, 2006 8:07:28 AM

Correction, the title of the book is “How NOT to Share You Faith; The Seven Deadly Sin of Catholic Apologetics and Evangelization”
Jimmy should give one to us all for penance. May God Have Mercy on all our Souls! Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy! Most Sacred Heart of Mary, ever virgin, Pray for us!
~

Esau,
My patron Saint is actually St Martin de Porres.
John is not in heaven yet.
Be at peace good man.You won’t make it to 45 at the rate your going.John is just getting your goat.
Sweet Blessings oh hairy one.

Esau,
My patron Saint is actually St Martin de Porres.
John is not in heaven yet.
Be at peace good man.You won’t make it to 45 at the rate your going.John is just getting your goat.
Sweet Blessings oh hairy one.

Look, I completely understand the felt need (on both sides) to respond to a post that seems outlandish and full of error. I have done so many times!
My main gripe is that John hijacks every thread he visits,dragging everyone off topic via his favorite rant on Why The Post-Conciliar Church Is A Total Failure. John, in internet parlance, that makes you a troll. A troll is (among other things) a person who repeatedly posts inflammatory and contrarian comments that seem designed to draw an angry response from the regular readers of the site. You know, the ones who visist to actually try to learn something, rather than to spout off on their monomaniacal obsessions.
That is rude, irritating and boring, and it ruins the thread for anyone wanting to discuss the ACTUAL TOPIC Jimmy posted on, because they have to wade through all the unhinged polemic.
Enough, already!

I’ll tell you what. I’m angry, ANGRY that that the enemy’s leaders are curbing the errors to have resulted from misinterpretation of HIS church’s counsel. With the blantant opposition of the present pope to our plans, those who are innocently ingorant of HER teachings may be convinced of their truth. Try to use pride in one’s own ‘wisdom’ on your patient in these cases, my dear nephew.

PioMagnus:Boethius (a Catholic Philosopher) is one of the people who said that God does not have emotions.
What are you taking????
Boethius was also the one who provided Christianity with the definition of “Person” in terms of Christology.
Specifically, with regard to Christ, Christ in his person – if you walked up to Jesus Christ 2000 years ago and talked to Him – He is one person and that person is divine. He is the second person of the blessed Trinity; the Word Made Flesh; Almighty God. But, this person incarnate uniquely – different from any human being because a human being has one nature, and that is a human nature. That doesn’t mean he is a human nature but he has a human nature.
Well, Christ, when we talk about his person, is divine but he has two natures through the miracle of the Incarnation and there’s not another example of any person that has two natures. This is a Miracle. But, he has two natures: divine and human.
Now, the nature that any other human being has is what makes him distinctly human. Because, if I just say he was a person, he could be an angel. An angel is a person because they’re rational. It’s the nature of a human being that makes him a human person.
With Christ, we have something a little bit tricky here because once we get to Christ, a lot of our Boethian definition and such kind don’t always hold up all that well because with Christ, it is His nature, the divine nature, that makes him a divine person.
But, in the Incarnation we have added this human nature. So, what do we do with this?Well, the human nature of Christ, we say in Theology, is accidental to his person.
It’s not essential for Christ to be human in order to be a person.
He’s a divine person for all eternity.So, the human nature of Christ, while hypostatically joined in the person, (we say ‘hypostatically’, that simply means ‘in the person’ or the Greek word ‘hypostasis’). It’s still accidental to His person so that we don’t say that He is, all of a sudden, a human person; no, he’s a divine person but he also has a human nature which puts him in a unique category.
Now, when we talk about the wills, then, in Christ; because he has two natures, he would then have two wills because the intellect and will reside in the nature. So, the divine nature has an intellect and will that is divine. The human nature has an intellect and will that is human. Therefore, Christ (now, a regular human being doesn’t have this – he doesn’t have 2 intellects; he has one intellect and one will) is unique in that He has two natures in his person, he has two intellects and two wills.

Esau
With all due respect, you seem to be obsessed with me-If I was a woman I would think you were an internet stalker
Get a grip and say the Rosary. You see I have 2000 years of church history, saints, martyrs and Our Lady to fall back upon to support my Apologetics while you unfortunatly do not see this. Our Lady told Jacinta and those little at Fatima to beware unless we obey and adhere to faith and uncompromised teachings and that the church would become corrupt from within.
We must continue to pray for Our Pope B16 who if he had his way with restore all things in Christ, sound catechism, canon law and the Mass of the Saints and Martyrs, the TLM
God bless and get a grip

Esau
With all due respect, you seem to be obsessed with me-If I was a woman I would think you were an internet stalker
Don’t flatter yourself.If you observe this thread, it was Innocencio who was the one who responded to your initial post. I, on the other hand, did not respond until your subsequent post where you attempted to besmirch my name along with others.
As for your 2000 years of apologetics, you don’t even have the honesty to recall all the material right from the patristic period on forward that Mary Kay, bill912, Innocencio, Ryan C, Tim J. and others (as well as myself) presented to you in the past.
Tim, I apologize, but this person refuses to refrain from his rude behaviour.

Jimmy
This was made clear at La Salette where Our Lady said:
“PROPHECY OF OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE
SEPTEMBER 19, 1846
“If my people do wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of My Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down that I can no longer keep hold of it…I make an urgent appeal to the earth…The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay…Woe to the inhabitants of the earth!…The fire of Heaven will fall…All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray because they have not worshipped the true Christ…he, the king of kings of darkness, will have plunged with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of hell. And then water and fire will purge the earth and consume all the works of mens’ pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified.”
The apparation at La Salette has been fully approved as true by the church by Pius IX and Leo XIII, this is not a hoax and to deny such would be to deny Our Lady.
Here is a simple link to her message of the missionaries who work in here name, and the message that goes along with it. This is not some “Rad Trad” conconction that Esau has tried to make it out to be, he is denying this clear and church sanctioned apparation. I have read many books on this and Fatima and Jimmy, we must pray, as you are doing the work of an Apostle, for a return to all things in Christ
God bless youhttp://www.ourladyoflasalette.org/

First, there is nothing in the quote you provided about Mary staying Jesus’ hand.
Second, one cannot claim that one is “deny[ing] Our Lady” if one does not accept a particular private revelation. The Church does not propose private revelations–even approved ones–to the faithful with the obligation to believe them.
Third, the Church acknowledges that private revelations can contain elements from the seer’s consciousness (see Pre-16’s commentary in The Message of Fatima).
Fourth, the published accounts of the La Salette secret are known to contain elements that are false.SEE HERE.

Thank God for Jimmy Akin!!!!
And people wonder why I admire the guy and count him as one of our Top Catholic Apologists!
Lord, please send more like him to serve our Church!
God knows we need more like him, Tim Staples and Scott Hahn!

jimmy
I disagree with you totally
It was the Masons that distorted the truth about LaSalette
You like many within the church, as Benedict XV put a clamps on this talk as it was scary
The original message and the thosands of missionaries who work in the Marian name you are calling false and leading a false life of devotion
I do ask you to research further, I do know you were Protestant before Catholic and do not belive in Our Lady, but I do ask you do further research as one can no deny the present darkness our Church has endured these past years

Jimmy
You site One source as compared to thousands that are not the “Radical Traditionalists” that CA states, and with all due respect CA is on the left of the spectrum of the faith
Do further research-you are then claiming that Pope Pius IX and Leo XIII were stupid and built a basicala for nothing
Think about it

I do know you were Protestant before Catholic
So just because Jimmy Akin was once a Protestant, you think he’s any less of a Catholic???
You said the same thing about Scott Hahn in a past thread!
But, you seem to ignore the fact that Jimmy Akin as well as Scott Hahn does more for the Catholic Church than you ever will!
In fact, all you do is HARM the Church with all your despicable lies!with all due respect CA is on the left of the spectrum of the faith
CA on the LEFT spectrum of the Faith????
You’ve got to be kidding!
The only one who’s on the LEFT side is YOU!Do further research-you are then claiming that Pope Pius IX and Leo XIII were stupid and built a basicala for nothingWhere is Jimmy Akin saying Pius IX and Leo XIII are stupid??? Again, you continue to TWIST THE TRUTH!

To insinuate that Mr Akin was once a Protestant and therefore does not believe in Our Lady is both slanderous and absurd.
I was born a Protestant and grew up not believing in Our Lady as well–but I converted. Now I do. I think that’s the way it works with most converts.
Please recall again that no private revelation, no matter how Church-approved, commands assent from the faithful.

So to build a basicalla on honor of this apparition false is to call 2 Popes totally stupid.
The Antichrist line was never the original message and the liberals and CA have now distorted it to make this apparition appear to be Rad Trad as well!
And yes-Protestants denounce Our Lady, and those that have converted from Protestanism have issues with Confession (confessing their sins to a mortal and not God) as well as Our Lady
To say otherwise would be foolish

Mr Akin,
You stated above that there was nothing in the quote from Our Blessed Mother at La Salette that says She is staying Her Sons hand.
The very first line says,”If my people do not wish to submit themselves,I am forced to let go the hand of my son”,to me this looks like She is staying His hand.
The Blessed Mother was speaking the truth here and it would be imperative of us to listen to Our Lady of La Salette.She is so beautiful.
God bless you.

“…those that have converted from Protestanism(sic) have issues with Confession (confessing their sins to a mortal and not God) as well as Our Lady.”
Please tell us how you learned to know so much about so many people you have never met. I was taught that doing this–judging people of whom one has no knowledge, “pre-judging”–was the definition of prejudice.

John,“Do further research-you are then claiming that Pope Pius IX and Leo XIII were stupid and built a basicala for nothing”
You were reading skills have not improved.“The local bishop approved the apparition in 1851, and that same year the two children were persuaded to write down information the Virgin Mary had given them.”
No one has doubted that the original apparition was approved. As you know we are not required to believe private revelation and we are not to place them above Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium.“You site One source as compared to thousands that are not the “Radical Traditionalists” that CA states, and with all due respect CA is on the left of the spectrum of the faith”
How about the Catholic Encyclopedia for another source. And CA being left is again your skewed perspective.
Jimmy has been very patient with you (he has already warned you twice), now he has very nicely corrected you misunderstanding of private revelation. Why not be respectful and obey the rules of this blog.
This quotation from the article is an out of the park homerun:In a way, radical traditionalists who charge the Church has apostatized are committing the Protestant error: To justify their separation from the Church, Protestant leaders charged it with having “apostatized” and become a heretical Church. We know because of Christ’s promise that this cannot happen (Matt. 16:18), but the claim was made nonetheless. Radical traditionalists who commit the same error do so for the same reason: to advance their own cause and—in some cases—their own schism from the Church.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

Amazing. They never taught me at RCIA that due to previously being a Protestant, I was ineligible to believe in the Virgin Mary and could not possibly accept the Sacrament of Reconciliation. That is a shame since I’ve been doing both of these things since becoming Catholic a few years back. Must have been a failing of this corrupted Vatican II teaching that John seems to have nothing better than to rant about.
I’m sorry, but I spent far too much of my life denying the Church and Pope’s authority, I’m sure not sprinting to heresy now for a more asthetically pleasing Mass experience, even IF I understood Latin and prefered it.

Amazing. They never taught me at RCIA that due to previously being a Protestant, I was ineligible to believe in the Virgin Mary and could not possibly accept the Sacrament of Reconciliation. That is a shame since I’ve been doing both of these things since becoming Catholic a few years back. Must have been a failing of this corrupted Vatican II teaching that John seems to have nothing better than to rant about.
I’m sorry, but I spent far too much of my life denying the Church and Pope’s authority, I’m sure not sprinting to heresy now for a more asthetically pleasing Mass experience, even IF I understood Latin and prefered it.

If former Protestants continued to deny the Virgin Mary and the Sacrament of Confession, then why would they convert? I was raised Protestant, and I say with as much honesty as I can muster, that if I did not believe each and every doctrine of the Catholic Faith, I would never in a million years have converted. Not because of any particular animus on my part, but rather that outwardly the Church has been in shambles for decades. But Christ promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail over His Church, though Hell rages and fights tooth and nail to try.
It is offensive to presume that ALL Protestant converts to Catholicism have issues with Catholic doctrine. St. Augustine was a Manichee; did he still have “issues” when at last he was brought into Holy Church? What about Cardinal Newman? And I will say, this attitude of suspicion towards converts doesn’t do much to encourage conversions! My own grandmother’s rather open disdain for non-Catholics has given many people I know the wrong impression of Catholicism, and perhaps kept them away from Holy Church!

Josh
Please note that I have meant no disrespect towards our Protestant bretheren who have joined our church, but I have known many converts say that one of their biggest obstacles was the idea of confessing ones sins to a mere mortal man. The same goes for our blessed mother, whom they feel they do not need to pray to for intercession when they can pray directly to our Lord
To deny that we as children growing up, in whatever household-do not carry some of these so called prejudices or beliefs into our grown up years is not being truthful. Scott Hahn, another former Protestant has written books on his journey which you may want to pick up
With respect to La Salette, I find it very offensive for Karl Keating of CA, a known anti Traditionalist, to somehow link this apparition, to “the Rad Trad movement” is distateful. EWTN had us last Sunday pray to Our Lady in her honor of La Salette.
This apparition was approved by the church by two Popes, a basicalla built. The message had immediately been distorted by the Masons (YES-those masons whom Pope after Pope has written encyclicals on warning us against their undue influence) and the so calle “free thinkers” in the church who did not want this message to be known as it would halt their efforts to Modernize and weaken the church, which they eventually were able to do
Mr Akin, I ask for you not to rely on CA as your source, at least on this subject, and go purchase a book written at the turn of the century before there was a Vatican II and so forth, and learn for yourself that indeed Our Lady warned about the church being in eclipse and holding back her sons hand. This is fact-not fiction, and to deny such is to deny the present state of affairs with and outside of our beloved church

Ah, me!!! Who would have thought that this little Methodist girl would live to read a self-proclaimed “Traditional Catholic” who sounds exactly like my (God help me!) fundamentalist Baptist relatives, on an anti-Catholic rant.
John, you have no idea how perfectly daft you manage to sound here!!
Compliments to the others, for charity above & beyond the call!!

“…but I have known many converts say that one of their biggest obstacles was the idea of confessing ones sins to a mere mortal man. The same goes for our blessed mother…”
An obstacle is something that stands in the way. Obviously, if someone converts, they have overcome the obstacles that prevented conversion. In fact, my experience is that adult converts – since they have more thoroughly worked through the theology of the sacrament – in general have more respect and fewer problems with confession than a lot of cradle Catholics who grew up with it and might resent it.
“To deny that we as children growing up, in whatever household-do not carry some of these so called prejudices or beliefs into our grown up years is not being truthful.”
Wrong. It is partly BECAUSE of my upbringing – devoid of the liturgy, sacraments, the communion of saints, etc. – that I have such a deep appreciation for these things now. It’s like a kid who grew up without decent food seeing a Las Vegas buffet for the first time. You think he resents all that food? You think he wants to stick to the dry toast for sentimental reasons? You’re not making sense. I know it seems to make sense TO YOU, but you just have not been there and don’t know what you are talking about.

John,“With respect to La Salette, I find it very offensive for Karl Keating of CA, a known anti Traditionalist, to somehow link this apparition, to “the Rad Trad movement” is distateful. EWTN had us last Sunday pray to Our Lady in her honor of La Salette.”
Please read slowly and for comprehension. Jimmy Akin wrote the article.
Again, NO ONE has said that the Our Lady of La Salette is not approved.
Third the “Rad Trad movement” has linked itself to La Salette in an attempt to raise private revelation above Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium.
At some point you have to understand that because you and I are not infallible we will have to trust and be obedient to the authority that Christ Himself established.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

I also was raised Protestant and converted. I often find myself explaining and even defending Confession and praying to saints/Mary to cradle Catholics.
John, I sympathise with many of your views and agree the Church is going through something of an eclipse (but include in the metaphor the fact that some light does still come to earth in an eclipse) but it is not a good idea to pontificate on the personal experience of other people when you are not one of them.

Please note that I am not knocking Protestants, and you are obviously using a red herring and the usual slander to go off topic. If we want to have a discussion on Protestant conversion, we can easily do so. For now I think the topic is Our Lady and her sons pending chastisement of the church (which is starting to happen with the scandals) and society.
From the New Oxfords review of Scott Hahn and his book on his conversion:http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0604-oneill
“Hahn’s enthusiasm for theological discovery has also led him, as a Catholic, to advocate ideas that are not so solidly rooted in Catholic tradition. Some of these ideas, in fact, are common in the theonomic Presbyterian circles from which he converted. Others would seem surprising or unusual in almost any circle, and they suggest an ongoing desire not merely to champion what is commonly accepted among orthodox Catholics”
From Mr.Hahn himself, who cites the Taize community in Europe as a source of his for his lectures on Our Lady, which is probably one of the worst sources possible.http://www.catholic-pages.com/bvm/hahn.asp

To clarify since I realized what I said about agreeing and an eclipse could be misintepreted by some, I don’t reject any Magisterial teaching and I obey current Church law even when I would have written it differently if I was in charge, and I certainly don’t believe the Pope is the antichrist.
I just mean that the Vatican and Episcopacy has become wishy-washy and weak and infused with private heresy (sometimes taught formally at the level of local bishop but we can judge that against Papal and Conciliar teaching), we have these sex scandals, vocations to the priesthood are down and in my experience most priests are heretical and too many are homosexual. The great religious orders are also plagued by heresy and low vocation numbers. Monasticism is dying, and monastic orders often seemly more interested in Eastern (e.g. Tauist) mysticism than Christian mysticism. The most of the laity tend to be lax and either heretical or too uneducated to be considered such. Catholic schools and colleges are often little more than nominally Catholic. The modern liturgy tends to lack the solemnity and beauty that it once had. Many if not most who don’t fall into this pattern either turn a blind eye to such problems in the name of orthodoxy or go too far and start rejecting what is good in the Church and setting themselves up as an authority above the Magisterium (or adhereing to groups that do).
I could go on but that is what I mean. There are problems in just about every corner of the Church, though good things continue to happen, like some young, vibrant, orthodox orders, EWTN (not perfect of course but in general I think a work of God), the continued evangelization of some remote areas, and some beautiful Magisterial documents like Deus Caritas Est. I suspect we are at the beginning or precursor of the great apostasy, not the end of it, and simultanously watching the last era of spreading the Gospel to every nation.

John, you are the one who brought Protestants into the discussion both on this thread and the original one.
One third of the posts on the original thread were people either attempting to engage you in discussion or expressing their frustration with your hobby horse.
The topic is not about Our Lady, but Jimmy having to clarify the unnecessary confusion you created in the original thread.
Jimmy has shown far more patience towards you than most people would.

“…you are obviously using a red herring and the usual slander to go off topic. If we want to have a discussion on Protestant conversion, we can easily do so.”
John, you accuse people of going off topic and then immediately go right back to denigrating Scott Hahn as an example to back up the the wrong-headed assertions you made about former Prot converts, and on which we only corrected you.
Scott Hahn’s opinions are HIS, and have nothing necessarily to do with his former thinking as a Protestant.

Tim
It is not I who is denegrating Scott Hahn, just pointing that Our Lady is still a sticking point with many luke warm and Protestant covert Catholics whom I know personally
Getting back to the topic, it is those who are denegrating Our Lady and her message which the Holy SEE approved in its fullness on November 16, 1851, now part of the magesterium.
But you see this message needs to be done away with, as it did not fit into the Masons plan which Pope Leo XIII wrote encyclical after encyclical on as well as the Catholic “free thinkers”, so they distorted the message. This message was distorted as early as 1914 in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Note that it was Pope Pius IX who sought out these youngsters, not they who sought him out.
Our Lady has said that she comes to the young because they are innocent at heart and pure, and purity is amiss today in society
Today now you have Karl Keatings CA distorting this clear apparition and making our Lady’s warning some “Rad Trad” item.
We pray for a full restoration to all things in Christ and Our Lady as Queen of Heaven and Earth

“But you see this message needs to be done away with, as it did not fit into the Masons plan…”
Woot! Gotta love a conspiracy theory…
What I want to know is, just where do the Jews fit into all this, John?

What may be true of “some ex-Protestant converts I know” is a far cry from proving anything about any other given convert. None of the ex-Protestant converts I know are like this, and I know a lot. For myself I’ve gone to confession a couple times a month (the Lord knows I need it) and prayed the Rosary every since I converted eight years ago; nor did my baptism and confirmation take place until long after I had fully addressed these issues.
I find it somewhat amusing to cite New Oxford Review as proof of Hahn’s leftover Protestantism in order to make some sort of general statement about the unreliability of converts. NOR and its editor, of course, used to be Protestant themselves.

With all due respect Tim and Bill, do you not know anything about your faith? You went to school and learned about American History and know about George Washingtom and Abe Lincoln, but know nothing probably before John Paul II. Please take the time to read the just one encyclical in this case by Pope Leo XIII on the dangers of Freemasonry (which by the way started in England in 1717 with its prime objective to bring down the Catholic Church, among other things). Please take the time to actually read right from the Vatican Archives
Introduction of the Encyclical
HUMANUM GENUS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII
ON FREEMASONRY
To the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and
Bishops of the Catholic World in Grace and
Communion with the Apostolic See.
The race of man, after its miserable fall from God, the Creator and the Giver of heavenly gifts, “through the envy of the devil,” separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other of those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. The one is the kingdom of God on earth, namely, the true Church of Jesus Christ; and those who desire from their heart to be united with it, so as to gain salvation, must of necessity serve God and His only-begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. The other is the kingdom of Satan, in whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents, those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God.http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus_en.html

“You went to school and learned about American History and know about George Washingtom and Abe Lincoln, but know nothing probably before John Paul II”
Hee. That’s kinda funny, since it was reading Augustine, the Church Fathers, The Didache and other aspects of early Church history that helped bring me to conversion (among a lot of other things). I was comparatively ignorant of contemporary Church history.
Strike two, John. Your assumptions about the lack of education and biases of others only serve to expose your own.

Please note that I am not knocking Protestants, and you are obviously using a red herring and the usual slander to go off topic.
JOHN (jtnova):
Just what kind of horse manure is that?…I am not knocking Protestants…John, not only are you knocking down Protestants, but you are knocking down the very folks who have converted to the Catholic Faith and have come to dedicate their very lives to it and the promulgation of her Teachings! Unlike you, who spends all his time doing HARM to the Catholic Faith by promulgating not her teachings but what can only be described as mere lies and calumny! By the way, there is much to learn from our Seperated Brethren — there is a Spiritual Fire there (those who are of such devotion to Our Lord) that I find in them (which I take note and highly admire) that, unfortunately, is lacking in the nominal Catholic. Yet, the only fire that I can see in you is that from the Father of Lies!…you are obviously using a red herring and the usual slander to go off topic.
This coming from the very guy who’s often committing such crimes here on this blog???
Who uttered such awful lies as those in the following posts:Yes-Scott Hahn a “former” Protestant
Questioning the validity of where in the Bible bread and transubstantiation is taught or in there word for word is just another lack of true knowledge of ones catechism or their faith. For that matter maybe one should search the Dheouy Rheims version and not the 4x since Vatican II retranslated New American Bible as it has been changed and changed to suit the Protestants as well as to be “Politically Correct” “Interwoven”? Yes-no one doubts that
Posted by: John | Oct 27, 2006 7:27:18 AMLet us start with indisputable facts. Whether we believe it or not, and whether it seems possible to us or not, what is abundantly clear is, that after V2 the Catholic religion has been changed. In the practical order, it has been replaced by another religion, an evolving religion, a religion greatly influenced by Freemasonry and Marxism…In such a situation they are obliged to disobey those who falsely speak in Peter’s name. To obey modernist and heretical “popes” is to declare that they are “one hierarchical person” with our Lord and hence that Christ teaches falsely – quod absit! Posted by: John | Oct 16, 2006 3:27:41 AMAs far as Mother Teresa, she participated in Hindu ritual which is pagan as far as I can recall and for all the time she spent in India have any Hindus found Christ or was she abiding by her orders and finding what is good in all faiths and not try to convert these pagans? IF that deserves sainthood as compared to the many martyrs who died for the cause and name of Jesus Christ, his teachings uncompromised and unsoiled Posted by: John | Jan 26, 2007 7:45:04 AMIs it a mortal sin to consecrate a known Communist as Bishop of Krakow?
Just wondering…… Posted by: John | Jan 20, 2007 9:12:47 AMOne just needs to look at where V2 and where the new mass came from to know to stay away from it. In 1962, the year John XXIII opened Vatican II, he was named ‘Man of the Year’ by Time Magazine, the first religious leader since Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi in 1930 and of course John Paul II was awarded the title in 1994. Freemason Yves Marsaudon (Supreme Council of France, Scottish Rite) said: “The sense of universalism that is rampant in Rome these days is very close to our purpose for existence . . . with all our hearts we support the revolution of John XXIII.” John XXIII, who died during Vatican II, is listed as a saint in the Lutheran Church. His feast day is June 3. Freemason Yves Marsaudon commenting on Paul VI said: “Born in our Masonic Lodges, freedom of expression has now spreading beautifully over the Dome of St. Peter’s . . . This is the Revolution of Paul VI. It is clear that Paul VI, not content merely to follow the policy of his predecessor, does in fact intend to go much further.” During Vatican II, exactly 66 non-Catholic ministers from other faiths attended the Council and were even allowed to vote on and help write the ecumenical decrees and then A total of 35 prayers or about 70% of the Tridentine Mass was replaced or discarded. Posted by: John | Oct 31, 2006 6:32:50 PMI cant help but laugh at some of these posts-even looking into scripture for the answer to this simple question that most traditionally catechised second graders are all versed in the Baltimore Catechism know the answer to (not the JPII version or as taught in the church today after Vatican II as I recently attended a communion where the priest told all that his bagel if he prayed over it would become Jesus!!. ) Posted by: John | Oct 26, 2006 4:55:45 PM

Tim said :
“But you see this message needs to be done away with, as it did not fit into the Masons plan…”
Woot! Gotta love a conspiracy theory…
What I want to know is, just where do the Jews fit into all this, John?
”
And when shown encyclicals on the Masons and Papal teachings, he ignores and tries to instigate something along the line of Antisemitism
Desperate Measures my friend

John,
no one is saying that Freemasonry is not bad and dangerous, or that it hasn’t been condemned by the Pope. That’s not the point. The point is simply that no private revelation, approved by Popes or not, suppressed by Masons or not, is binding on the faithful in whole or in part. This is the only relevant assertion in this discussion, and one which you have not yet addressed.
Esau,
I respect and share your orthodox views, but I can’t help thinking that your verbal and visual rhetorical devices are excessive and detrimental to achieving anything. Yelling at someone in the wrong is not the same thing as refuting him.

Unfortunately, Mr. Sullivan, there is no other effective method of highlighting than bolding.
The bolding merely serves to highlight core elements in John’s posts that are clearly calumnious in nature.
One more such post from John:As far as Scott Hahn -if you ever read his bio he HATED catholics for years and then came over to Catholicism-do you not think he forgot his sola scriptura way of thought over night? Does he not run the bible study on EWTN? I am not questioning his catholicism as he is probably a better Catholic than the cradle catholics -as I do recall it was the Protestants who stood up against the media onslaught against the Passion of the Christ while Catholics and JPII (who actually met with Abe Foxman) said nothing, so I do admire many of them
Posted by: John | Oct 27, 2006 1:03:14 PM

Now, JOHN (jtnova):
If you don’t actually consider these elements in your posts as the “usual slander to go off topic” that you, ironically, have accused us of; then, truly, your reasoning has fallen short of your faith (that is, whatever there is left to begin with).

Esau, you’re way cold. Bill is warmer. Everybody has to swim down! Swim down to avoid the troll. (courtesy of Gil in the aquarium)
Bill, aw why didja have to go and tell about my yellowfin tuna? (stomps off as well as a tuna can stomp)

John,
love for Cardinal Law-In straight defiance of Our Lady??
As soon as you said that I knew you are a simple lay man who knows nothing about the Church today.
Cardinal Law is innocent. He was set up because he was one of the good ones and the powers that be cannot stand that.
I know the apparition of La Sallete.
Probably with info you don’t know.
But I was taught to speak with prudence.
Now is not the time to go around shouting that.
There will be and very soon.
For those who can understand, just hold that in.
When the time comes, then let go.
And as a little crash course in Vatican diplomacy,
the best and oldest, compare Fr. Marciel of the Legionaries and Cardinal Law.
In Her prudence and maternal wisdom, She condemed Fr. Marciel without saying it out loud.
Cardinal Law, being set up for his conservative line, and the Vatican knowing this, was brought to the Vatican and made an archpriest of one of the most famous basillicas in the world.
Compare and contrast, and if you don’t conclude that Cardinal Law is innocent, then you condem yourself to having no respectable credability in your ramblings.
And this is just what I am telling you to learn a bit. There is more proof than outsider conlusions.
You sir are product of the forces that be.
The Church was stuck in neutral for a while, the people got angry and bored, so then comes the rock band and the people compared the priest mumbuling “Deus in aj.”and then the priest with long hair and an electric guitar, and followed the rocker because he was dynamic.
And you are the guy that stayed in neutral.
The others where on overdrive, but in the wrong direction.
Don’t be a reactionary, be a counter-revolutionary, fight, but like Our Lord.
The pharisees wanted the old and nothing more (among other things) and Our Lord perfected the old.
I agree that there were turns for the worst.
Progressivism took control. There was a need to renew, but definetly not the way it was done.
But look at this website. I love these people.
They reanimate the past in todays future.
They remind me of the Benedictines.
Just that they are converting todays world from a worst thing.
Check it out. Check the brazilian flag on the right upper corner too, that is the best sight.http://www.heralds.cahttp://www.heralds.us
Tell me, don’t you think they are well aware of the prophecy of La Sallete.
When the time comes, and it will soon,
then we can let the world see God’s justice manifested in the faithful of the Church.
For now we fight the hardest part,
believing God will intervene, and praying for him to do it soon, and not only that, but to get ready.
Because the Old Testament, except for the Great Flood, has nothing on what is about to happen.
Amen Veni Ira Tua!

Some Day:
You’re comment:Because the Old Testament, except for the Great Flood, has nothing on what is about to happen.
It immediately reminded me of this passage from Scripture:
Matt 24: 29-30
29 And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be moved.
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven. And then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty.
Of course, the following is also mentioned:
Matt 13:41
41 The Son of man shall send his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and them that work iniquity.

“Correction:
Your comment, that is, and not You’re.”
Aw, Esau, that changes the entire meaning of your hidden message. Now I’ve gotta go find my Jimmy Akin Personality Cult Secret Decoder Ring! And I don’t remember where I left it! (Swims off in a huff…)

I hope your not thinking that there is personality cult to Jimmy or myself, I really can’t tell what you are hiddenly trying to say.
Which ever it is, you have severe lack of seriousness.
And I don’t mean not laughing.

I hope your not thinking that there is personality cult to Jimmy or myself, I really can’t tell what you are hiddenly trying to say.
Which ever it is, you have severe lack of seriousness.
And I don’t mean not laughing.

I can only laugh at all of you as you accuse me of ranting and ramblings while Esau’s cut and paste jobs go on for miles, and the last 15 posts have nothing to do with the topic but are nothing but hate filled posts directed at me
Take a look in the mirror as I have clearly illustrated that there is indeed Masonic which today evolved to Modernistic or progressive elements in control of the church and many of you here deny this, as Tim so woefully illustrated where he considers Papal encyclicals of only 100 years or so warning of these influences as being some sort of conspiracy, and then tries to throw other hooks out there
You have lost this debate, and this aparition and the warnings from our Lady is NOT a metaphor as Jimmy has stated, it is a true warning, as she warned three young children at Fatima likewise of pending doom unless Russia is consecrated to the Sacred Heart

John,
I am not dening the inimaginable influence of the masons and similar things.
500 years of decadence has been orchestrated.
But you are awfully imprudent.
And without a true compenetration of what all this means. You just want to be right.
And you are wrong. To look at the truth in way other than God sees the truth is false.
You think you are the counter-revolution of all this evil, and you are not.
You don’t even know what being a counter-revolutionary is all about.
You lack love of God in your words.
And I don’t mean kumbaya lets hold hands love.
I am not dissing you. Just pointing out you are argueing bad.

Ahh, but the Masons that’s… that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with… geometric logic… that there is indeed Masonic which today evolved to Modernistic or progressive elements in control of the church. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow clergy…
Just keep swimming Just keep swimming…

I can only laugh at all of you as you accuse me of ranting and ramblings while Esau’s cut and paste jobs go on for miles, and the last 15 posts have nothing to do with the topic but are nothing but hate filled posts directed at me
JOHN (jtnova):
Could it possibly be that my posts that contain the cut-and-pastes is as you describe “nothing but hate filled posts” BECAUSE of the very fact that THEY CONSIST LARGELY OF YOUR CURRENT AND PAST “HATE-FILLED” COMMENTS???
Thus, you are FINALLY looking in the mirror for once!

“…any non meat suggestions for supper?”
Well, Dan, there’s always fish, but I like vegetable soup, or vegetable stir-fry. Baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese and stuff.
I had spinach pizza for lunch.

I can only laugh at all of you as you accuse me of ranting and ramblings while Esau’s cut and paste jobs go on for miles, and the last 15 posts have nothing to do with the topic but are nothing but hate filled posts directed at me
JOHN (jtnova):
Could it possibly be that my posts that contain the cut-and-pastes is as you describe “nothing but hate filled posts” BECAUSE of the very fact that THEY CONSIST LARGELY OF YOUR CURRENT AND PAST “HATE-FILLED” COMMENTS???
Thus, you are FINALLY looking in the mirror for once!

Apologies, Jimmy, for my part in all this back-and-forth with John.
I can only pray for the day when John finally realizes just how horrible and untrue his comments are about the Church, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II as well as our former popes.
God bless.

John,
I hope you realize now that not only did Jimmy Akin write the article he linked to, he wrote it over 7 years ago. You have not brought up anything “new” or “secret”.“You have lost this debate”
In a debate you have to listen to the other side, John, not just keep talking and worse repeat what has been refuted. You have convinced yourself, we get that part.
Jimmy Akin’s article hit the nail on the head and it is very obvious.“In a way, radical traditionalists who charge the Church has apostatized are committing the Protestant error: To justify their separation from the Church, Protestant leaders charged it with having “apostatized” and become a heretical Church. We know because of Christ’s promise that this cannot happen (Matt. 16:18), but the claim was made nonetheless. Radical traditionalists who commit the same error do so for the same reason: to advance their own cause and—in some cases—their own schism from the Church.”
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

John, to clarify what your position is to us, could you please say whether you beleive Pope Benedict XVI is truly the Pope, with the same authority as say Pope Pius X or Leo XVI. Same with JPII.
Also, would you say Pope Benedict is a or the Antichrist?

Inocencio,
This I’ve perceived. I figured he had the general SSPX viepoint. However I thought John also unless I’m mistaken (can’t spot it above right now) more or less defended the interpretation of Rome becoming the seat of the Antichrist as meaning the Pope (or antipope?) being the Antichrist.
I wanted to know if this was in fact the case or if I had misinterpreted something. I think its a good idea to know who we are dealing with here.

However I thought John also unless I’m mistaken (can’t spot it above right now) more or less defended the interpretation of Rome becoming the seat of the Antichrist as meaning the Pope (or antipope?) being the Antichrist.
J.R. Stoodley,
Read the collection of quotes I posted above from John’s past posts.
For example:In such a situation they are obliged to disobey those who falsely speak in Peter’s name. To obey modernist and heretical “popes” is to declare that they are “one hierarchical person” with our Lord and hence that Christ teaches falsely – quod absit!
Posted by: John | Oct 16, 2006 3:27:41 AM

JR said as Tim has tried with his Antisemitic hook in their best imitation of the Pharisies :
John, to clarify what your position is to us, could you please say whether you beleive Pope Benedict XVI is truly the Pope, with the same authority as say Pope Pius X or Leo XVI. Same with JPII.
Also, would you say Pope Benedict is a or the Antichrist?”
Yes JR I do believe they are the Popes and I love B16 very much. My feelings for JPII are much less, as he compromised the faith in many many instances
Now after reading these edifying comment that have been posted such as food and other lame discussions, I have clearly done the following:
“PROPHECY OF OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE
SEPTEMBER 19, 1846
“If my people do wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of My Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down that I can no longer keep hold of it…I make an urgent appeal to the earth…The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay…Woe to the inhabitants of the earth!…The fire of Heaven will fall…All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray because they have not worshipped the true Christ…he, the king of kings of darkness, will have plunged with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of hell. And then water and fire will purge the earth and consume all the works of mens’ pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified.”
The apparation at La Salette has been fully approved as true by the church by Pius IX and Leo XIII, this is not a hoax and to deny such would be to deny Our Lady.
In the years after, with modernism taking root and many Catholics within the church who considered themselves free thinkers as well as the Masons from outside, distorted the message, as you all do here with your comical disdain for anything that would have to make you kneel once again to receive your Lord on the tongue as well as other steadfast traditions and customs that have been altered and customized to suit todays sinful modern world.
And then I proved to Tim, who joked that the Masons were a “Conspiracy”-that yes they did and still do exist as Pope Leo XIII wrote 2 encyclicals as well as Pope Pius X, a Saint who warned us against Modernism
I wait for CA to correct their so called encyclopedia tarnishing this event as a Rad Trad event only, and the damage they are causing to the Marians who have devoted their lives to this cause

Dan, apparently for this thread, I’m a blue herring with yellow fins.
Someday, the lack of seriousness was intentional as part of several people who I think were trying the same, to defuse this thread from going where it usually goes. (for which you needed a mind that jumps like a grasshopper to paraphrase from one of Dick Francis’ novels) Just keep swimming is from the movie Finding Nemo. I’m not sure where Bill’s strawberries came from.

John,“I wait for CA to correct their so called encyclopedia tarnishing this event as a Rad Trad event only, and the damage they are causing to the Marians who have devoted their lives to this cause”
We wait for you to learn how to read and comprehend what you have read. No where does the CA article that Jimmy Akin wrote say that La Salette is a Rad Trad event only.
The “so called encyclopedia” was the Catholic Encyclopedia but of course you know better than that too.
You may abuse your free will as you choose. I will stand upon the rock obedient to the keeper of the keys, the Vicar of Christ.“Foolish then, is he who departs from the Vicar of Christ Crucified, who has the keys of the Blood, or who goes against him . . . Even though the pope were satan incarnate himself, I may not lift up my head against him, but I must always humble myself” -St. Catherine of Siena
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

Could people please STOP hijacking the comboxes to carry on their flamewars? If you’re that desperate to insult each other, send nasty emails. But it’s really rude to keep dragging these discussions off-topic so you can further your grudges.

Could people please STOP hijacking the comboxes to carry on their flamewars? If you’re that desperate to insult each other, send nasty emails.
brigidmarie:
That’s just it; it’s not personal insults that is the focus here or, furthermore, what is being attended to; if you actually cared to examine the posts, it is the calumny being unjustly done to very cherished beliefs and priniciples such as our Catholic Faith, the Catholic Church, and such holy folks like Mother Teresa and John Paul II — people that (at least, some of us) have the highest respects for.Such things are very personal and are a part of family. Now, I wonder if someone were to do such injustice to things you hold dear, such as your family or people you love, if you would actually allow such awful things or if you would go ahead and stand up for things you believe in!

Give up?
I think I clearly proved that this was a church sanctioned apparition, not a “metaphore”, as well as proved the Masons are a true threat to the church for centuries, are real unlike others who think it is a conspiracy theory. Unfortunatly SOME clergy in the church are now embracing Masonic membership to the highest ranks, as evidence by todays CWShttp://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=49344

Some Day
Can you see that people are tired of the name calling that you and others continue to resort back to-cant you do better in your Apologetics than name calling? Again, I belive in the Deposit of Faith and Tradition unchanged by man even after a so called renewal. Protestants had their “renewal” some 400 years ago. If I am in error now in adhering to the faith, tradition and beliefs of the church as held for centuries-then that is the same as saying the church was in error before 1962 and that can not be

John –
“I think I clearly proved that this was a church sanctioned apparition, not a “metaphore”, ”
Nobody ever said that the apparition of La Salette was “a metaphor” or that it was not recognized by the Church. They were saying that in the apparition, when Mary refers to the hand of her Son, SHE is using a metaphor. She is not literally, physically holding Jesus’ hand. Metaphors are just a kind of symbolic speech.
Private revelations – Church approved or not – are PRIVATE, and it is not required that any Catholic put their personal faith in the spiritual visions of another. I love Our Lady, and I believe wholeheartedly in her appearances at Lourdes, Guadalupe, and elsewhere. But you are not allowed to treat these apparitions as if they are on the level of Holy Scripture. Nobody has to measure up to your personal idea of the meaning or significance of La Salette.
I KNOW the Masons are real. It would be strange to believe they were not. I simply reject out-of-hand that Vatican II was in ANY way the result of any kind of Masonic plot within the Church.
Are the Mason’s historically anti-Catholic? Absolutely. Are they any kind of real threat to the Church now? No. I also reject your assertion that hidden Masonic influence has corrupted the leadership of the Church since Vatican II. One bone-headed priest (or a handful) becoming a Mason can’t be taken as proof of ANYTHING, except the bone-headedness of the priest.
So, what you have “proven” was already obvious to all, it is your understanding of the implications of these things that is distorted.
The problem with the Church is you and me, not some shadowy Masonic plot.

Tim-Let us not argue
It is wasted energy that we both do not need to expend, we all can discuss things rationale
I always respect all’s opinion, and do read all posts when responding, and I never start the antagonistic garbage that others as illustrated above go for. I do have to defend myself and my integrity when called a name-but it only wastes space on the thread that others do not want to read
God bless you and all

Again, as in my previous post regarding apparitions:When folks start putting too much emphasis on an apparition, we should caution that because even apparitions that are approved (Lourdes, Fatima) do not require divine faith. In fact, we cannot put divine faith in an apparition. Why? Because it is a private revelation – it does not merit divine faith. And so even those that are approved, we have to remember to keep them circumspect. How much more so those that have not been approved at all?
Posted by: Esau | Feb 14, 2007 2:23:07 PM

I’m for that, John.
I think the level of discourse on Catholic blogs often does not give the best witness to the world. There are many people silently watching, and when we get personal or make over-the-top accusations, questioning the intentions of our brothers and sisters in Christ, we break the Great Command of Christ to “Love one another”.
God have mercy on all of His children, through Jesus Christ.

You too, John.
Again, I am sure you well know that I have respect for your devotion to preserve the Traditional Teachings of the Church and, above all, the TLM, which, as I’ve said in the past, I miss very, very much.
The sacred silence, holy reverence and distinct piety I had often observed in TLM members of a Catholic parish that used to celebrate it (formerly listed in Ecclesia Dei) has now been replaced with gum-chewing, hippie-music playing, t-shirt wearing, “talk-all-you-like-in-church”, “have no reverence for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass since it’s only a Symbol” folks; all due to certain rogue priests and laity out there.
Yet, we need to change the Church from within and not engage in schism and, above all, calumny or scandal.Remain loyal to the Church, John; by doing so, you remain loyal to Christ.
God bless, John.

You John, do not even know half of the fight against the judeo-masons.
You couldn’t tell tell the recent victory over the masons.
Think. Think. Think.
You won’t know unless someone tells you,
because this fight is a vocation, and not an opinion.
I would reveal my normal name, but it is too risky. I might be labeled an idiot like you.
But the difference is that you rant about things you think you know, and we hold in the things we do know.